Mount Amel Castles
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How it came to be
The Mount Amel Castles are five fortresses on hilltops and ridges of the Jabal Amel region of southern Lebanon: Beaufort (Qalaat Al Chakif), Toron (Tibnin), Chakra (Dubieh), Deir Kifa (Maron) and Chama'. Overlooking the main routes, they worked as a network controlling movement, communication and farmland, and passed through Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk, Ottoman and local feudal hands.
Toron was built in 1106 by Hugh of Fauquembergues, prince of Galilee, to help capture Tyre. Beaufort was taken by King Fulk of Jerusalem in 1139, by Saladin in 1190, by the Crusaders again in 1240 and finally by the Mamluk sultan Baibars in 1268. Toron, razed by the Mamluks in 1266, was rebuilt in the mid-18th century by the Shiite sheikh Nasif al-Nassar, and most of what stands today dates from his work.
Beaufort was besieged and partly destroyed by Jazzar Pasha, governor of Acre, in 1782, and further damaged by the earthquake of 1837. In the late 20th century it became a military position again, held by the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1976 and by the Israeli army from 1982 to 2000. The five castles were inscribed as a World Heritage site in 2026.
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